


when the sun peeks out

by steviewrites



Series: cadnis [1]
Category: Mean Girls - Richmond/Benjamin/Fey
Genre: Anxiety, Cuddling & Snuggling, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Friendship, Light Angst, Seasonal Affective Disorder, Some Humor, Summer Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-01 23:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20439659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steviewrites/pseuds/steviewrites
Summary: summers tend to be a little grey for cady, so janis tries to bring her some sun.





	when the sun peeks out

**Author's Note:**

> hi friends! it’s stevie/cadyjanis. i wanted a fresh start so this is my new account. if you missed the last passengers update author’s note, passengers will still be updated on my old account but all future works are going to be posted here. once passengers is over i’ll be retiring cadyjanis completely. excited for this new start and hope this little change isn’t too confusing! ♡
>
>> **content warnings:**   
depression
> 
> [title + story inspo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAQC_3i_eGs)

It’s been raining for a week straight, which is an accurate representation of how Cady feels now that it’s summer.

Everyone else is probably the opposite: relieved, delighted, and looking forward to vacations and sleeping in, students of North Shore High and beyond are all celebrating the fact school is out. But Cady, bogged down by nothing but her own brain, is spending the first couple weeks of a blessed two and a half month break in bed.

When she awakens from what’s become a daily nap, she has no clue what day or time it is, but doesn’t care enough to check. She rolls onto her other side with a groan, stomach aching from hunger. The rain drumming on the roof almost lulls her back to sleep, but an incoming text boldly interrupts.

Huffing in depressed frustration, Cady unwillingly reaches for her phone, where a hoard of notifications have been piling up since she fell asleep hours ago. Janis just wrote to ask if she wants to do anything later, and guilt tugs at Cady’s heart. She knows Janis and Damian are keeping busy together, but it’s _summer_, and they probably miss her. They came by the other day to hang out, which was a good reason to put on actual clothes and eat something.

But she doesn’t have that energy today, and she feels even more sapped simply by typing a short, lethargic response, saying she’s too tired but can try tomorrow. That gives her enough time to rest—from what, is the million dollar question—and mentally prepare herself for social interaction.

Her throat tightens, the guilt deepening, because she shouldn’t have to get ready to see her _best friends_. They must think she’s going aloof Plastic again, since she hasn’t wanted to do much since school let out. She had a week while Damian and his mom went to Niagara Falls, but now he’s back, and Janis doesn’t start volunteering at the animal shelter til July.

Cady is aware this isn’t remotely her fault; her mind just slips into this dark, nervous place when summer rolls around. Lots of people usually experience the same in the winter, but for Cady it happens now. Her anxiety peaks due to the heat, and she hasn’t wanted to subject her friends to her inexplicable agitation.

She also knows they’d understand without judgement or hesitation. She just feels bad and would hate for it to become their problem. So her curtains stay drawn, her phone is put on do not disturb, and she sleeps the worst of it off. It’ll get better eventually. But until then, the solution is to simply lay low, and nobody has to get hurt.

She caused enough damage this year. This can’t affect her friends.

Janis sends a sad face emoji, but says that’s fine and to let her know what she’s up for. Cady appreciates how laidback Janis is. As much as she loves Damian, he’d be lovingly pestering her with ideas.

That night, her parents are pleased to see her make an appearance at the dinner table, and she takes a long shower to wash away the last two days of sleep and nothingness. Then she watches a few episodes of _The Office _(so she can tell Damian whenever that she is, in fact, making progress with it), and drifts off right around the time the rain begins to settle.

In the morning, the sun pokes weakly through the fabric of her curtains, and Cady welcomes it. The most she can do is pull her hair back, then goes down to the quiet kitchen in search of food. It’s still a bit early, but her parents already left for work.

Sighing, Cady fixes herself some toast and banana slices, and watches cartoons as she eats, wondering what Janis would want to do with this exhausted, dreary version of her best friend.

It’s like all the color has been drained from Cady’s life, and it just makes her feel worse. She should be doing tons of fun stuff this summer, but can barely manage to get out of bed right now. Her thoughts while awake often drift to morbid and scary places, making sleep more of a refuge than anything.

She knows she’ll lighten up as time goes on, just like the sky outside is still grey but there’s no rain. But the wait feels like forever, and what if it’s not worth it?

Cady shakes her head, not wanting to go there at eight thirty in the morning. She finishes her breakfast and returns to her room to let Janis know she can come over whenever, then takes another shower to calm down.

She’s weirdly anxious anyway, and falls down a YouTube spiral as a distraction. She hears the familiar rumble of Janis’s truck around eleven, but doesn’t get the door since Janis knows where the spare key is.

“Hiii,” Janis obnoxiously drawls down in the foyer, shutting it behind her. Cady rolls her eyes, but snickers. “Where oh where is little Caddy Heron?”

“Up here,” Cady shouts, and it’s the loudest she’s spoken in weeks.

Noisy Janis jogs up the steps, and comes into Cady’s room with such exuberance the poster on the door falls down. Bull in a china shop, even worse than Damian, who’s six foot three.

“Shit, sorry,” she cusses apologetically, and Cady watches her pick up the poster and attempt to put it back.

“Just leave it on my dresser,” Cady tells her after a minute. “It’s fine.”

“Sorry,” Janis says again, gingerly doing so like she’s afraid of tearing it. It’s honestly a miracle she hasn’t already. Janis is always a mess, but in a controlled way.

“I like your hair,” Cady says, for Janis’s usually loose waves are braided over her shoulder. Cady thinks she looks cute in her shorts, with a red flannel she stole from Cady over a white tank top, and clunky boots on her feet.

“Oh, thanks.” She touches the elastic at the end, then pulls her phone from her pocket before flopping onto Cady’s unmade bed. “How goes it?”

“I’m tired,” Cady admits, joining her, bored of watching videos.

“You’ve been hibernating for, like, two weeks,” Janis teases, poking her thigh.

“Ha. Yeah. Sorry.” Cady makes a face.

Janis shakes her head. “Nah, man, don’t. I get it. You spent the better part of the year being a Plastic, that’d suck the soul from anybody.”

Cady chews her tongue, debating on how to share her sad reality with Janis. Janis scrolls on her phone, content to just lay here in silence, oblivious to Cady’s inner turmoil.

“You good, though?” she ultimately asks, softening her voice.

“Not really,” Cady mumbles, grabbing her stuffed lion for emotional support. Janis turns on her side to face her.

“What’s up?” she inquires, and Cady wishes she had a better explanation. Her grandma died, or both her parents lost their jobs, or she has to move again. Anything but the borderline embarrassing truth that, simply put, her brain gets sad when the weather gets hot.

She knows Janis is the last person to be critical of someone with a mental illness, but Cady isn’t very good at being honest, or expressing how she feels in a way other people can really understand.

Even Janis, who’s arguably “freakier” than she is.

“Did something happen?” Janis murmurs, for Cady has yet to speak.

“Nope,” Cady sighs. “That’s the problem. Absolutely nothing happened and I feel like pure shit. And I can’t do anything about it.”

Janis’s brow furrows, but not with confusion. “Are you sick?”

“Not like that,” Cady mutters, stroking the worn mane of her lion. There’s a pause as she gathers her thoughts, then continues dismally, “I’m sure you know what it is, but I have…seasonal depression. Most people get it in the winter, but. I get it now.”

“Oh.” Janis’s expression is light, neutral, like she’s treading carefully. “Okay. Makes sense. Like, why you’ve been sorta out of it.”

“Yeah. Sorry,” Cady feels compelled to repeat.

“Don’t,” Janis assures, hand on her elbow. “Not your fault. Do you take anything?”

“For the anxiety, yeah. But it’s mostly bad in the beginning, so I just have to wait it out.” Cady sighs, wanting to go back to sleep, drained just from talking about it. “I’ve been sleeping a lot. I’m freaking _exhausted_.”

Janis pouts sympathetically, and Cady appreciates the gentle caress of her nails on her arm. “I’m sorry, bud.”

Cady lifts a shoulder. “It’s whatever. I’ll be back to normal soon-ish.”

“What can I do to help until then?” Janis asks, and Cady tries not to laugh at her, because her idea of _helping _could entail anything.

But she’s trying to be a good friend, something they both need to be better at. So Cady thinks on it, really thinks, but draws a blank when her mind refuses to budge. Nothing seems fun or worth leaving her house for, even things she did as recently as a month ago.

That’s the whole point, though. Depression steals time you don’t realize you wanted until it’s too late.

“Do you want ice cream?” Janis suggests, after another silence on Cady’s part.

That would require getting up from this very comfortable spot, putting shoes on, walking down the staircase and the porch steps, climbing into Janis’s truck, buckling her seatbelt, standing in line at the shop to order, then sitting outside in the humidity, and coming all the way back to go _up _all those stairs… Effort that’s not an issue any other time of year.

And so, mournfully, Cady replies, “Yes, in theory.”

“You don’t wanna have to go get it,” Janis guesses, reading her mind.

Cady hums a laugh, fed up with herself. “Basically.”

“Then I will,” Janis offers, already sitting up. “I’ll run to the store and get us both a pint. What do you want?”

“Aw, Jan, you don’t have to do that,” Cady goes to protest, that suddenly being worse. Even if it’s no trouble to Janis and just what friends do, Cady, naturally, feels guilty.

“Really, I don’t mind. Think of it as a compromise,” Janis soothes, as Cady sits and drops her head in her hands, scrubbing at her face.

“Ugh. I’m too sleepy to argue more, otherwise I would,” she huffs, and Janis fist pumps the air victoriously. “Yeah, yeah, you win this time. I want Rocky Road and a Snickers bar, while you’re at it.” What the hell. She’s depressed. Couldn’t hurt.

Janis laughs. “Okay. Is it too much to ask you to pick a movie while I’m gone?”

Cady lets the look on her face answer for her, and Janis nods in grave understanding. She promises to be back in fifteen, and says to text if Cady thinks of anything else she might want. Cady lays on her pillows holding her lion as she waits, wondering how she managed to keep such a kind friend in her life.

She probably doesn’t deserve someone like Janis, but will spend as long as she has to making up for her junior year mistakes.

She’s startled from her doze by the sound of Janis’s boots on the steps again, and is briefly confused because a teeny, tiny part of her just assumed she wouldn’t come back—but she barrels into Cady’s room with as much energy as she did the first time, bearing gifts of ice cream and candy, and Cady has never felt luckier to call Janis her friend.

Janis turns on the fairy lights strung through the slats in Cady’s headboard, making the room cozy again as summer thunder rolls outside. Cady lets Janis find something to watch on Netflix, then they dig into their ice cream as a _Stranger Things _episode begins to play.

A typically chatty person, Janis is quiet and—as Cady personally, affectionately thinks it—well-behaved. Cady enjoys her presence, the press of her warm thigh against Cady’s as one episode ends and another begins.

Strangely, and with a twinge of remorse, Cady is glad Damian isn’t here. Something about just Janis snuggled up next to her in her bed makes Cady happy.

Cady is hungrier than she thought, because she finishes her whole pint and her candy bar, a feat considering Janis has an appetite that rivals Damian’s. But she feels good, and kind of warm inside despite the cold ice cream. Janis grabs the blanket at the foot of the bed to wrap around them, and only now Cady gets a chill she can’t pin on what she ate.

Janis finds her hand between them, brushing her thumb over Cady’s knuckle, and it’s the most at peace Cady has felt in a while. She manages to stay awake solely out of spite, not wanting to lose another second to the storm inside her head.

“I missed you,” Janis murmurs randomly, and Cady, whose head magically ended up on her shoulder, looks up at her.

“Aw. I missed you, too,” she says sincerely, squeezing her hand. “Sorry I didn’t just tell you what was going on. It’s kinda just sucked me in.”

“Again, don’t be sorry,” Janis reassures, kissing the top of her head. She’s a very touchy-feely person, but that’s oddly romantic.

It probably shouldn’t be. Cady doesn’t even know why she thought that.

“Still.” She shrugs, heart fluttering. “I’ll be better soon, and we can do all the fun things.”

“Good, ’cause Damian’s making a list,” Janis warns her, amused.

Cady groans fondly, and Janis laughs. “Don’t worry,” she adds protectively, “I’ll make sure he doesn’t force us to do anything too insane.” Which could be a whole number of things, bless him.

They fall comfortably silent again, and finish their binge an episode later. The rain patters soft on the windowpanes, and they lay on Cady’s warm bed with their phones, still cloaked in the blanket, their legs entangled beneath it.

Time passes, but Cady doesn’t feel like it’s being stolen from her. No words are exchanged, just the occasional giggle or comment when someone sends the other a dumb post. It’s nice, and while it isn’t the cure for what Cady will have to manage for the foreseeable future, it’s a comforting distraction.

Cady doesn’t feel guilty for nodding off when she can’t keep her eyes open anymore, for it’s that time of day she’s begun to succumb to the urge to nap. She feels Janis inch closer so their foreheads are almost touching, and her last conscious thought is wishing they would.

She’ll be able to figure that out once the fog in her head clears, but for now she’ll savor this.

When she stirs hours later, Janis is fast asleep next to her, snoring slightly. Cady smiles to herself, reaching up to brush a piece of hair out of her eyes.

The sun is making another appearance, brighter now even though it’s later in the day, enough that it peeks through the sliver of Cady’s curtains. The rain has stopped, and she feels rested. Her best friend is here. She’s going to be okay, and that tiny bit of light confirms it.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! kudos and comments are fetch ♡
>
>> **find me:**   
[twitter](https://twitter.com/wantingmylove)   
[tumblr](https://cadyjanis.tumblr.com)


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